The afternoon has just set and now on its early hours. The sun striking with a blinding light, illuminating my room. It's not hot, just the kind of warm that puts you into lazy, quiet mood, perfectly whisked to make you think.

Steady. This afternoon is just steady, reading from others' public update of their lives in all social networking sites, frantic, hopeful, excited and anticipating of the next year in a few hours. It's the last day of 2011 today, and I am here reminiscing how the year was. 

But that's another story.

What would be a better way to spend the last day of the year? Thinking. Yes, I think a lot and it has done me good and caused me trouble, emotional surges, confrontations and unnecessary woes. 

Sitting quietly in my bed, I thought to myself, there's one thing that I've been trying to avoid for years in my life, and that is steadiness. The steadiness that would last and drag for a long time, it scares me, it worries me. For steadiness could fall into routine and complacency, the lack of passion and life in the things that we do, for the people we love. 

It makes me wonder what transpires in the minds of the people when they've grown too comfortable with each other, does the peace on their face reflect what's inside their thoughts? What secrets do they keep? I'm sure we all have secrets we keep. How they feel about a certain thing? These things that could just run around in a steady situation without being discussed. It's lonely. It's frustrating to think that we could not do anything about the things that people keep from us especially if we are directly affected by it. 

Shouldn't we accept that there is no such thing as permanent? That everything we thought would last would eventually wash away through the years, that the things we keep intact would soon weather and that only one thing's bound to happen, change. 

2012 I know you will be a very big change in my life.

Table for Two

Friendship is not defined by proximity or the length of time two people have spent together, its not about the number of memories shared, it is about bridging the distance and feeling like you've never been apart, it's about making every time spent together last like eternity and making every single moment a memory worth remembering.

Charisse and I have known each other since we were elementary, as she remembers it vividly we first made a proof of how good as a team or a duo we are during our quiz bee when we were in grade 1. I had all the answers that got us to the final round and she had the correct answer for the final question which I could've gotten wrong had I not listened to her. We won the contest. In one of the contests in our fourth grade, we paired up and practiced together, we were a perfect match as we were the key pair of the group, chosen to be the final pair when the game got tougher, and with an unquestionable coordination and unity, we won. Things began to get better for us when got into high school. Our second year highlighted and jumpstarted our friendship which was soon forged into a deeper and higher status of sisterhood. We complement each other, we learn from each other, and as what we have always believed we are twins by soul, separated by birth.

College was a test in our friendship, having to spend four crucial years of emotional instability and identity crisis, a friend is someone who would constantly reassure you of your strengths, and would keep you sane. Having missed milestones in each other's lives as well as those times when our morale is at rock-bottom, it was tough getting by without a friend. Apart, we have met other people to fill in the roles we are supposed to fill in, we have created our dreams, when we used to always dream together and build some of our dreams around each other, this time we were on our own, reaching realizations when we were by ourselves. We have found our passion separately, we have lived lives apart from each other's shadows, and most of all we have learned to grow.

Breaks became the only times we can make up for the time we've lost, it's hard to congest all the things that have happened in a year in a span of two to three hours. Some things that were kept in the shelves of our thoughts and archived are often left undiscussed. Our friendship may have gaps, but that doesn't make our friendship any less.

The things we've talked about, the way we talk, the topics we pick to discuss about, the people we've spent time with in the absence of another, the places we frequent, these things have changed, but looking at her talk animatedly, listening to her high-pitched voice, the old rants and whines, apprehensions and the security of uncertainty, I know we've never changed. There will always be that high school Charisse and Nadine somewhere tuck in ourselves, sooner or later we have to shed it off, but one thing will remain in our high school selves, the friendship we've built and kept strong.

Stars and Boulevards

When the stars shone the brightest, when the night skies were the clearest... that's when I felt the darkest. Coincidentally, the darkness of the sky and the eclipse of the moon were signs of an impending doom and the end.

When love is not enough to hold things together, to promise you that everything's gonna be okay as long as there's love, when it no longer works its magic, that's when you need something to fall back on to save whatever there is left of. But, what if there's nothing else you could fall back on? What if love's the only thing that can save it, but now it's gone.

The first one who gives up is not the weaker one, maybe he or she is just the wiser one to acknowledge the fact that no matter how hard both of them have tried it's not gonna work and keeping things together is not a sign of strength but a sign of cowardice to admit that they've reached the end of the road.

Pain lingers for a while, reminiscing will be the unwanted company, and memories will be the best reminder of how good it was and what went wrong, and maybe in one of those memories you will come across with eventually you will find consolation and the answer to why things didn't last as hoped for.

Maybe, just maybe, forgiveness will save it all.

Love Sick (Barfs)

While watching wedding videos and listening to vows, I realized how love sick I am, that I still have that hopeless romantic lurking inside me. We all are sucker for happy endings and fairy tale like stories, even the most cynical beings have that secretly and buried deep down inside them, hating to admit it as a sign of, maybe, a rebellion against things that are superficial, but we all are superficial, we also just hate to admit it.

I take it as an inside joke on me whenever I feel both a cynic and a believer, when I doubt the things I believe and believe in the things I doubt. It's inexplicable but such thing exists in me.

How many times have we seen ourselves married to the person we are with right now? How many times have we had replaced the person we used to be with? Looking at a relationship as something that has no end is good while the spark is there, while the person remains the same the very first time we knew them, however, what happens when reality kicks in, when the person we thought we knew is someone different? Do we still see a future with them? Do we still see love like there's no end in sight?

To keep a relationship a lasting one, requires a lot of things, to begin with it is also something. So what's with the love sickness? The thing about being in love is when you see past through what's right in front of you, to believe even in the most impossible and to feel emotions you've never felt before. It is when quotes become part of your conversations, it's when love stories become relatable you even want to call them your own, it's when you start looking at the future holding that same hand you're holding now, it's when you feel scared but keep pushing forward anyway, it's when you start blogging about it.

When love kicks in, the doubts are kicked out. It's is entrusting yourself to the person, knowing that he might not perfectly handle you, but he will endure handling you and hold on to you no matter what. Yes, you may have imagined how your house will be, your wedding, how your vows will be delivered and what they will contain, you also have created names for your babies while you feel butterflies in your stomach, but it's not just about happy days, glorious days, it's about facing everyday no matter how ugly and awful it could be and making it end magically. Love is about hard work, it's not always like the fairy tales because even fairy tales tell us that there are villains to be taken down and struggles to be overcome to get to our happy ending.

Don't judge me, I'm feeling extra sensitive, and I hope you should too.